Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category

When it comes to wealth and Miami-Dade County, it’s all about the coast. The greatest density of wealth is found in Miami along all the coastal areas, with the following exceptions: the area due North of Edgewater (5) up to Aventura (30) and Sunny Isles Beach (28), as well as the area South of Palmetto Bay (81).

While the districts of Xicheng and Dongcheng represent the core of Beijing and have real estate prices on par with many of the most expensive cities in the world, the part of Beijing with the greatest percentage of people with a college degree is in Southeastern Haidian District, where most of the top-tiered universities, like Tsinghua University, Peking University and Renmin University of China, are located. Certain sub-districts in Chaoyang, where most Fortune 500 companies and expatriates live, also have a higher percentage of college-educated population compared with other areas.

What neighborhood has the highest average income in the City of San Francisco? Surprisingly, it’s not the well-known neighborhoods in the Northern part of San Francisco like Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow or the Marina. It’s actually West Twin Peaks and Noe Valley, both in the Southern part of the city. We would surmise this has something to do with the explosion of wealth in Silicon Valley and the desire of dot-commers to live in San Francisco. Worth noting is Portrero Hill and Bernal Heights, also in the Southern part of the city and also with significant average income.

Of course, if you go North to Marin or South to San Mateo County, you will find neighborhoods with substantially higher average incomes.

This chart shows the growth of real income growth (y axis) against percentile of global income distribution. While the middle classes of emerging markets have seen enormous gains in the past generation, Western middle class incomes, including the US, have significantly stagnated in comparison.

The United States has the highest income inequality among comparable nations.Theleft-sidegraphdepicts the USashavingafavorableGinicoefficient (a measure of income inequality)without taxes. After taxesandgovernmenttransfersarefactored in,theUS becomes highly unequal.Oneofthereasonsforthistrendisthat,althoughthe US usesprogressivetaxation,thetax ratesare significantlylowerthantheinternationalstandard and social welfare programs are also much less generous.

Quicken Loans released two new indices, the ‘Home Value Index’ and the ‘Home Price Index,’ as depicted in the graph above. These indices reveal that homeowners overvalue their homes in times of economic crisis. This can be seen in the graph where home values are significantly overstated by homeowners during the 2008-09 financial crisis. The opposite effect is seen when the market is rebounding: homeowners tend to undervalue their homes.

The real US GDP growth rate declined this quarter and is now at -1%, the first quarter of negative growth since 2011. Nominal GDP is up 11.7 billion, to $17.1 trillion. Click the chart to see our detailed GDP report.

Taxes make up about the same amount of GDP as they did in the 1970’s. Although the amount fluctuated over the past forty years, following boom and bust cycles of the economy, the percentage is nearly the same.